Tag: Fedor Emelianenko

Tomorrow night in New Jersey, Strikeforce will launch a tournament that will either establish the promotion as innovative big-dogs of the MMA industry — and arguably produce the #1 heavyweight fighter in the world when the dust has settled — or invite even more ridicule when the thinggoes tits-up. Who knows how it’ll play out? Right now, all we can say is that Fedor Emelianenko is fighting this weekend (and coming back from the first loss of his career), and that’s a pretty major event in itself.

Weigh-ins for ‘Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva‘ go down today at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, NJ, beginning at 5 p.m. ET. The event is open to the public, and will be televised on a live episode of Inside MMA. HD Net will also be broadcasting the preliminary card tomorrow beginning at 8 p.m. ET, featuring TUF 12 vet Marc Stevens against John Cholish, and Igor Gracie vs. John Salgado.

Come back to CagePotato.com tomorrow night for round-by-round results from the Showtime broadcast, beginning at 10 p.m. ET.

(“Although he always wondered what it tasted like, Fedor couldn’t bring himself to accept Alistair’s offer to try horse meat.”)

Nothing we can say about this photo from yesterday’s Strikeforce fan and media day is funnier than the photo itself. At any rate, go ahead and give us your best caption and the funniest one will receive one of our imaginary legendary Cage Potato t-shirts.

(My God. I keep expecting Silva to do this to him. / Photo courtesy of MMA.us)

By Anton Gurevich

(Note: As part of a new content partnership, we will occasionally be passing along interesting articles from our friends at LowKick.com. So give ‘em a look…)

Fedor Emelianenko will make his long-anticipated return to Mixed Martial Arts this weekend, facing none other than Brazilian heavy-hitter Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva. The fight will open the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, as the winner is expected to advance into the semi-finals against either Alistair Overeem or Fabricio Werdum.

The fight between Emelianenko and Antonio Silva is another classic “Fedor Fight.” Once again, “The Last Emperor” is facing a significantly larger opponent, who looks physically superior to the Russian. Silva will be four inches taller than Fedor, and probably around 45 pounds heavier. On top of that, Bigfoot will enjoy a huge eight-inch reach advantage, which could be a deadly tool during the fight.

Strikeforce has graced the East Coast with their presence throughout this week, as the hype machine for their massive heavyweight grand prix is in full flux. Starting on Tuesday with a meet-and-greet for fans at the Roseland Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan with all eight of the tournament fighters, and continuing on Wednesday downtown with their press conference, Strikeforce is leaving their imprint on the tri-state area, informing natives of New York and New Jersey that the business of MMA has more than three letters.

This journalist/nerd was in the house for their press conference, which saw not only all members of the tournament, but the reserve fighters as well, packed into the swank Lighthouse 61 at Chelsea Piers, the skyline of New York dramatically posed behind them. Personally, I was excited to see that Strikeforce was feeding the reporters, and quite well at that, but even more exciting was the realization that this epic tournament was happening in my area. With MMA still illegal in New York, and very few big shows coming to neighboring states, having Saturday’s event a thirty-minute drive from The Big Apple was bound to help shed some light on how much of an impact MMA can have on the NY economy.

Approximately 1,500 MMA fans swarmed the Roseland Ballroom in New York City yesterday afternoon for a special meet-and-greet with the participants from Strikeforce’s heavyweight grand prix. The action begins this Saturday at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey, with two quarterfinal matches — Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Silva and Andrei Arlovski vs. Sergei Kharitonov — and three reserve matches, featuring Shane Del Rosario, Chad Griggs, and Valentijn Overeem. If you’re going to be there in person, please swing by the press pit to receive a complimentary fist-bump from BG.

We’ve collected some video highlights from yesterday’s festivities after the jump: First, all eight members of the heavyweight GP are introduced to the crowd by horrific YAMMA/Affliction vet Scott Ferrall. Then, Alistair Overeem talks to Ariel Helwani about his new love of American football, getting ducked by Fedor, and Dana White’s opinion that he’s not a top ten heavyweight. Finally, Fabricio Werdum shows off his special move for the tournament, and we have to admit, it’s pretty damn special. Check it out.

Fedor says his widely celebrated Glorious Sweater of Absolute Victory is now retired. Oh also, he still wants Alistair Overeem drug tested if they are to fight in the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix.

It’s curious that whenever you see Fedor Emelianenko training, it always seems to be with younger, smaller, less skillful opponents and that he never seems to be going above 50% intensity. The fact that he’s talking about bringing in Shane Carwin to help him prepare for the later rounds of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix may be an indicator of the level of training partners he has to pick from in his gym since his brother Aleksander and Gegard Mousasi left the Red Devil team.

As you can see in the video above, Fedor had an OK training camp, but didn’t really seem to get pushed much in the clips we saw. It makes you wonder what kind of shape he would be in and whether or not he would have lost to Werdum if he had spent the last year training at, say, Xtreme Couture. They say when you’re the top dog in the gym, it’s time to find a new gym where you’re in the middle of the pack trying to work your way to the top.

(The photo above was paper-clipped to the front of M-1′s memo to tournament participants that drug testing will be mandatory for the GP. Subtle.)

When Dana White’s favorite Crazy Russian, Vadim Finkelstein speaks, the MMA world listens, mostly just because he usually has a lot of bizarre demands to make.In a recent interview the head of M-1 did with Russian sports news site Sports.ru, Finkelstein touched on a lot of topics including the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix, Fedor’s contract status and his recent statement he made about mandatory drug testing in the later rounds of the tournament.